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November 2012

November 29, 2012

For at least the second time this month, Cuban journalism student Adiet Conde Sotolongo was arrested Thursday in Havana, according to a report posted on Facebook by exiled Cuban journalist/blogger Luis Felipe Rojas.

Ives González Roca, a friend and fellow student who witnessed the arrest, said Conde was stopped by a counter-intelligence agent about 9 a.m., hustled into a waiting vehicle and driven to a police station. His whereabouts were unknown.

Conde, Gonzalez and at least five other journalism students were arrested and detained last week after leaving a journalism training session at the U.S. Interest Section in Havana.

Cuban human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz says the secret police harassed him for the first time in 20 years, and dissident Guillermo Fariñas says they hit him, in what the two men called yet another sign of the government’s growing nervousness over the opposition.

Sánchez has been one of the few critical voices that seemed to be tolerated by the communist government. He has run the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation from his home in Havana without trouble since 1992 even though it has never been recognized by officials.

But he alleged that two State Security agents in plainclothes who approached him on a street Tuesday called out his name, accused him of being a “liar” and a “mercenary for Washington” and threatened that “soon I will receive a forceful reply from the revolution.”

“This was very rare,” he told El Nuevo Herald. “The truth is that I have not been molested” since a 1992 police raid on his commission’s offices. “Monitored yes, but molested, no.”

Sánchez blamed the incident on “the increasing nervousness in the government” over continuing opposition activities despite a harsh crackdown over the past year by the Raúl Castro government.

Sánchez’s commission reported earlier this month that police carried out 5,625 short-term arrests — usually lasting only hours — for political motives in the first 10 months of the year, a monthly average of 562 that compared to 172 in 2010 and 343 in 2011.

Dissidents also have complained of increased beatings, and some have been jailed for longer periods. Antonio G. Rodiles, one of the most active dissidents in recent times, was beaten during his arrest and held for 19 days earlier this month.

Fariñas, who won the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought in 2010, said he believed the attack against him showed authorities are “in a state of nervousness” because dissidents will not halt their work despite the repression.

He was walking to a friend’s home in Havana Tuesday night when two men in their 20s who were dressed in civilian clothes called him a “mercenary” and “counterrevolutionary” and tried to hit him on the head with a stick, he said. He put up his arm and the blow landed on his forearm.

The two men then ran into a dark-colored Lada, a Soviet-era car traditionally used by State Security agents, and a third man at the wheel sped away, Farinas told El Nuevo Herald.

After 19 days of detention in a police station in Havana, Antonio G. Rodiles returned to freedom convinced that the best path to a better Cuba is through the rejection of violence.

Rodiles was released on Monday afternoon after authorities agreed to the request of his lawyer to withdraw the charges of “resistance.” His violent arrest sparked an intense campaign of international solidarity.

The activist was fined 800 Cuban pesos [approximately $30 U.S.]. He will not go to trial.

CF: What do you take away from this experience?

AR: I say to my friends and others with whom I have spoken, that my main experience is that at this moment in Cuba there are a great many people who understand that the country has to change, and that people thinking differently, that people having different views of things, political, ideological, is not a reason for people to hate them or to not respect them but, sadly, there is a group of people who up to now have demonstrated that they have carte blanche to use violence, who are committed to creating situations like this one and I think, what’s more, they are committed to creating even more critical situations.

I think it’s very important that all national and international public opinion support civil society activists because these people are not the preponderance of the people in this country.

Definitely what they did to me was a vulgar beating and it was planned by them ahead of time.

CF: Your followers and the people who have followed your case insisted that there had been violence especially against you. What precisely happened that day of your arrest?

The State Security agent who uses the alias Camilo.

AR: An official who has become known for beating and abusing people, whose alias is “Camilo,” crossed Avenue 31 [in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre] with a group of people, crossed directly to beat me. He says “identificaiton” or “ID card,” something like that, but simply to mention it. No one in uniform came, they didn’t identify themselves, and they immediately pounced on me.

When I put out my hands so they wouldn’t grab me, they rained punches down on me. They grabbed me by the neck, and threw me to the ground, there was a group of between 10 and 15 people — people who were there said it was something like 12. And when they threw me on the ground they began to kick me, to punch me, and at that moment someone punched me in the left eye, thank God their knuckle didn’t go into my eyeball, only the edge, this gave me a strong contusion in the eye which even bled. After they picked me up, they took me to the cop car, and against the car they were still hitting me, in the chest, all my ribs, it was a total beating. Thank God I didn’t have any fractures but I certainly could have.

CF: In the dungeon, what else did they do and how did they treat you?

AR: When they took me to the detention center on Acosta Avenue, which is a center for ordinary crimes of the Police Technical Department of Investigations (DTI), on arriving there, there was still this individual Camilo with two other characters he goes around with, who were also trying to provoke me, manhandling me, trying to provoke an incident.

This individual Camilo recorded me with a video camera, everything that was going on, but there appeared a major from the police station itself and these things were stopped until they took me to the cell. And yes, the next day, the people who had charge of me in that place had a completely different attitude. It was one of total respect, both physically as well as my moral integrity. I had medical attention, the doctor was a very kind person, she checked me over completely, looked at my eye, healed the eye. And the officials there, of the police, they behaved with respect.

It’s also incredible how the prisoners identify with people who come there for political reasons and they always call you “political” and the people are in solidarity with you.

Launched in 2002, De Cuba was the first independant magazine ever created under Fidel Castro's rule. It was revived as a bimonthly in 2002 by Ricardo González Alfonso, who managed to publish two issues before being arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison on 7 April 2003.

During the 1990s, a so-called “Special Period” that included a limited opening-up to the outside world, small independent news agencies emerged and began to circulate news and information outside of the government’s traditional control. A former state TV journalist, González was the joint editor of one of these independent news agencies, called Cuba Press. These new independent journalists could not however print newspapers or magazines as access to printing presses is strictly regulated and individual print publications are illegal.

González managed to overcome these obstacles and bring out the first issue of De Cuba in December 2002. A substantial, many-paged magazine intended to appear every two months, it had to content itself with being circulated clandestinely within dissident circles. But readers were interested. It tackled subjects ignored by the government media, such as racism in Cuba and the Varela Project, a campaign launched in 2002 by the dissident Oswaldo Payá, a Sakharov Prize laureate, which collected 11,000 signatures to a petition for constitutional amendments aimed at bringing about democratic change. (Payá died in a car crash on 22 July 2012.)

The combination of the Varela Project and De Cuba was too much for a government that does not readily tolerate protests. A second issue appeared in February 2003 and third was being prepared when the regime finally brought the period of limited freedoms to an end. González was one of the 75 dissidents arrested in the course of the “Black Spring” that began on 18 March 2003. Convicted on charges of spying and “activities against Cuba’s independence and territorial integrity,” he was finally released on 13 July 2010 in exchange for agreeing to go into exile. He now lives in Madrid.

The website also features repostings of the two published editions of De Cuba.

November 26, 2012

The release of Cuban dissident Antonio Rodilesafter his unjust arrest 2 1/2 weeks ago is a victory not only for Rodiles and for his family, but for all on the island and overseas fighting for a free Cuba.

Rodiles' arrest on Nov. 7 sparked an international campaign to demand his release, which culminated Tuesday when he was freed after he paid an 800-peso fine.

November 18, 2012

One of the more noble efforts of American diplomats in Havana is how they open the doors of the U.S. Interest Section to Cuban dissidents. For instance, for several years the Interest Section has hosted journalism courses, offered via teleconference by Florida International University, for Cuban independent journalists.

Of course, that irks the Castro regime to no end, which has made habit of harassing, threatening, arresting, etc. Cubans who dare to challenge the dictatorship's embargo on information not only by working as independent journalists but seeking out training they need to do their job as well as possible.

Among those detained were Raúl Ramírez Puig and Odalys Pérez Valdés, correspondents with Hablemos Press; and Adiet Conde Sotolongo and Ives González Roca.

That the American government assists their efforts is welcome. But it also is frustrating that Washington doesn't publicly protest such arrests, that they don't do more to extend some protection to their guests.

A coordinator of a civil society initiative calling on the government to ratify international human rights treaties, Antonio Rodiles, has been charged with “resisting authority” (resistencia). He has been placed in pre-trial detention (prisión provisional), but no date has been set for his trial.

Shortly after the arrest of the independent lawyer and journalist Yaremis Flores on 7 November, Antonio Rodiles, his wife and several other government critics went to the Department of State Security headquarters, know as Section 21 (Sección 21) in the neighbourhood of Marianao in Havana, to enquire after her whereabouts. Before they could reach the building they were approached by 20 people, all plain-clothed, as two officials from the Ministry of the Interior looked on. Antonio Rodiles was reportedly knocked to the ground and pinned down by four men. Several of the other activists were also manhandled and were forced into a police vehicle and sent to various police stations around Havana. All were released by 11 November, except Antonio Rodiles.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office (fiscalía) informed Antonio Rodiles’ wife on 14 November that he was being charged with “resisting authority” but a formal charge document has yet to be issued.

Antonio Rodiles is one of the coordinators of Citizen Demand for Another Cuba (Demanda Ciudadana Por Otra Cuba), an initiative calling for Cuba to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which the country signed in 2008. Amnesty International believes the charges against him may be being used to punish and prevent his peaceful activities as a government critic and is gathering further information on his case and treatment.

My brother is an honest, intelligent man, respectful of the rights and opinions of others. He likes to converse and to look for logical solutions through objective analysis of the things that are happening.

He has always had a vision of a better Cuba for all Cubans and the right of Cubans to be heard and the responsibility to take the reins with regards to which direction our country should follow.

He is a man of integrity, he knows how to present his ideas clearly at all levels to be understood both by the Doctor of Science and by the high school student. He knows how to pay attention without discriminating against anyone’s opinion, because everyone has different experiences in life and all are valid and enrich the perspective from which we see the problem.

November 14, 2012

As the world’s eyes were turned on the U.S. election, Cuba’s regime unleashed a wave of arbitrary detentions, arresting 20-25 dissidents on November 8 and 9, as they were on their way to an organizing meeting for a campaign to end human rights abuses in Cuba. These detentions are in addition to another 520 arrests that took place in October, according to the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, led by Elizardo Sanchez. Freedom House condemns Cuba’s crackdown and urges the regime to release these activists and heed citizen calls for greater respect for its human rights obligations under UN treaties.

The Cuban government began arresting activists on November 8 to thwart a meeting organized by activist and intellectual Antonio Rodiles on the Citizens’ Petition for Human Rights or “Demanda Ciudadana por Otra Cuba,” a civic campaign which raises public awareness about Cuba’s human rights record and calls on the Cuban government to recognize its obligations under UN treaties. These treaties include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Cuba signed in 2008 but has not ratified. Cuba will undergo its universal periodic review at the UN Human Rights Council in 2013, a critical time for activists to shine a light on Cuba’s human rights record.

Authorities first detained a young Cuban lawyer, Yaremis Flores, who provides free legal assistance to Cuba citizens. Other dissidents were arrested when they showed up at the police station to protest her arbitrary detention, including ex-hunger striker Guillermo Fariñas, Orlando Luis Pardo, Antonio Rodiles, Angel Santiesteban,and several former political prisoners from the Group of 75 who served long prison sentences during the Cuban Spring of 2003. Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez was also detained, her second arrest in just over a month. She was detained on October 5th when she attempted to cover the trial of Angel Carromero in Bayamo.

Sanchez was released on November 9; however many others including Rodiles remain behind bars and activists claim that he was harshly beaten during his arrest.

Freedom House consistently places Cuba among the world’s most repressive societies. Cuba is ranked Not Free in Freedom in the World 2012, Freedom House's survey of political rights and civil liberties, and Not Free in Freedom of the Press 2012. The island nation also received the second-lowest ranking in Freedom on the Net, a study of internet freedom in 47 countries released in 2012.

Cuban independent journalist Calixto Ramon Martinez, in jail since Sept. 16, has started a hunger strike to protest poor living conditions and other mistreatment he has suffered since being transferred this past Saturday at el Combinando del Este in Havana.

When Martinez arrived at the prison, guards confiscated his civilian clothes and threw him into a small, overcrowded cell with about 35 other inmates. The cell, which is about 42 feet long and 20 feet, has only a single double-sink and two holes in the ground for a toilet.

"The conditions in this prison are totally appalling, it should be declared uninhabitable," Martinez said in a telephone conversation with Roberto Guerra, Martinez's boss at the CIHPRESS news agency.

Martinez was able to use the prison phone, even though prison officials had said he was to be barred from making calls.

Martinez said he would continue with his protest until he gets his clothes back.

Martinez, 42, a correspondent with the CIHPRESS news agency, had gone to the airport to investigate the condition of several tons of medications and medical equipment donated by the World Health Organizationn that somehow had ruined.

Number 54033 (Part 1)

By Yaremis Flores

The afternoon of November 7th I couldn’t imagine that I’d trade my name for a number. I went out at approximately two in the afternoon to take a serving of soup over to my father, who’d been admitted into a hospital. While I was going down the street I live on, the #950 patrol was driving slowly around the area. When I was almost crossing the road, I heard a sharp braking. An agent from State Security called me by my name and said the usual: “You have to come with us and turn off your cell phone.”

I had made the made the call to which I have a natural right and no one can deny me beforehand. Thus I at least was able to report my arrest. Because of my short height, the fact that I’m a woman and unarmed, I didn’t deserve the corpulence of badge numbers 29128 and 29130, by whom I was taken to the back seat of the patrol car without knowing the reason for nor the place of my destination. When I asked, the agent limited himself to saying “you’ll see where we take you, I felt like meeting you, but today you’re going to find out who I am.”

My surprise wasn’t much at seeing my destination was 100 and Aldabó. I’ll confess I thought at first it would only be a few hours’ detention. Under the pretext of spreading false news against international peace, they took blood samples from me and seized all my belongings. An officer told me that I must read a sign on which are listed the rights and responsibilities of detainees, as if they were worth much. Then I was led into a small room where they gave me a gray uniform and told me to always carry my hands behind my back: so that I’d not be reprimanded!

They gave me two sheets, a blanket, a towel and a mattress pad. I forget who, but someone said “she will spend a few days here.” During more than three hours of questioning, the case officer tried to decipher my thinking and collaboration with Cubanet. He sought an explanation of what his superiors classified as a process of metamorphosis: “from a judge to acounterrevolutionary.” Making it clear that that would not be our only conversation, an officer took me to a cell with two other prisoners, who had been there more than 30 days.

Many worries came to mind: my father’s health, my little 3 year-old girl, and the reaction of my husband, friends, and family. I showed calm. That night I ate nothing. I tried to sleep. When I almost succeeded, some blows to the cell bars and the jailer’s shouts startled me. “54033, 54033!!!” I didn’t answer. When she opened the cell, the bitter woman looked at me and said “Girl, you don’t hear me calling you, or they gave you a beating with gusto.”

Then I remembered that I had in a small blouse pocket a little piece of cardboard that said “54033/201.” It meant my prisoner number and my cell number. One of the girls told me “now this is your identity card.” Meanwhile, the jailer told me to get all my things together. A little dazed, I began to fasten my shoes and she warned me: don’t fix up so much, you’re not going very far, you’re going to another cell. “Then I’m going to another cell,” I answered. This was my first night in Aldabó.